Adam Monsen

January 25, 2011

Measuring Development Speed

Filed under: Default — Tags: , — adam @ 11:35 am PST

We’re rewriting the Mifos front-end from Struts 1.0/JSP to SpringMVC/Freemarker. So far it’s been slow going, so we’re trying out several experiments to speed up the process.

I think it’s important to measure the impact of our improvements. I want to know: are we moving faster? Is product quality flourishing? Can we say so quantitatively? The last bit has been the most elusive. It’s like measuring how useful a painting is!

Still, here are some measures which we hope will eventually show how much the improvements are or are not helping. Right now we’re just establishing baseline data.

The red line in the graph represents legacy front-end code that will eventually disappear. The green line is new code, but it really doesn’t matter.

From the chart data, we can say the following by measuring deltas between points: the most dramatic change in Struts/jsp LOC was 4380, for the time period ending Aug 2010.  The most dramatic change in SpringMVC/ftl LOC was 3665, for the time period ending Sep 2010.

Assumptions:

  • these data are not useful for estimating speed of future refactoring work
  • all acceptance tests pass in refactored areas
  • look & feel of refactored areas is acceptable

The 2nd & third bullets are a bit vague. To address this shortfall, we’ll measure the following aspects of quality:

  1. Time spent modifying CreateSavingsAccountTest.
  2. Number of issues (regressions) caught during CSS walk through.
  3. Number of layout or functional bugs logged during testing phase (missed during walk through).
  4. Time spent by QA manually testing the feature, including logging issues and retesting bugs fixes.

Finally, developers should know if things are better. This is the most qualitative and possibly the most important “measure”! Certainly, for the migration of our codebase from svn to git, it was the only measure we used, and it was enough.

Thoughts/comments/feedback are appreciated. I’d rather have some kind of simpler measure, like “x increased by 250%”. Do you know of any more effective (and hopefully simpler) means of measuring development speed?

I used gnuplot to generate the graph. Here’s the source.

January 4, 2011

Have a Cheap, Quick Breakfast Yum

Filed under: Default — Tags: , — adam @ 10:08 pm PST

Bachelors, health nuts, frugal folks, check this out.

Grrrraaaaaains!

Some rainy night, do this:

  1. Buy a bunch of bulk spelt, red winter wheat, and barley from the bulk section of your grocery store.
  2. Add 2/3 cup of each grain to a large pot (2 cups / 500 mL total grains).
  3. Add 8 cups (2 L) water.
  4. Bring to and keep boiling uncovered for 45 minutes.

Throw it in the fridge. Heat some up in the morning and dress it like oatmeal. I like honey and whole milk. Try stuff like fresh/dried fruit, brown sugar too. Freezes well.

45 minutes means the wheat and spelt will be chewy. That’s how I like it.

Beeeeans!

  1. Add 2 cups (500 mL) raw pinto beans to a crockpot.
  2. Cover with 3-4 inches (8-10 cm) water.
  3. Cook on low for about 8 hours overnight.

Dress with like sliced fresh raw tomatoes, salsa, cottage cheese, sour cream, salt and pepper. Leftovers keep well for up to a week in the fridge, or freeze ‘em.

YUM!

Thanks Forest M and Pam W for the inspirations!

Odds & Ends

These grains/legumes/whatever are so tasty on their own. Seriously, why the heck do we need raisin bran and corn flakes?!

What’s your favorite breakfast?

For more fun, check out oat groats, amaranth, quinoa, and kasha.

Suggestions/corrections/feedback welcome. Yes Patrick, even your lovely trolling is welcome.

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